About language and limitations

The US biotechnology company Genex, in its 1982 annual report,
used an interesting analogy to explain what genetic engineering is all about:

DNA can be thought of as a language, the language in which all
nature's genetic information is written. As with any language, it is desirable
to be able to read, write and edit the language of DNA. Rapid methods for
determining the substructure of DNA, developed a half a dozen years ago,
correspond to reading DNA. These methods now make it possible to determine the
complete structure of a gene in a few weeks. New and still rapidly evolving
methodologies for chemical synthesis of DNA molecules make it possible to write
in the language of DNA much more rapidly than was possible only a couple of
years ago. Finally, and most important, genetic engineering techniques
themselves make it possible to edit the language of DNA. It is by this editing
process that the naturally occurring text can be rearranged for the benefit of
the experimenter. (3)

Time needed for the synthesis of a gene

The biotechnologist as a desk-top publisher - the comparison is an
intriguing one. As electronic desk-top publishing made giant leaps forward when
computers and software became available, the cutting and pasting of the
hereditary material became possible with molecular techniques to read and
gene-machines to write DNA sequences. Graph 3.1 shows how fast the technology
has developed. In the late 1970s, the synthesizing of a simple gene could take
several months, a process which, through automation, is being rapidly
standardized. But the desk-top publishing analogy also serves to show the
tremendous difficulties still faced by genetic engineers. Ever sat in front of a
computer, staring at the message 'disk error, please exit!', thus losing several
hours of work? The average word-processor user, like myself, has little
understanding of exactly how a computer and its software do its work. You type
letters on the keyboard and they appear on the screen. The level of
understanding that the biotechnologist has of living organisms is similar.
Genetic material can be read, written and edited, but the understanding of how
and why genes express themselves, how they really function in a living being and
what is their precise role in the overall picture, is largely a mystery.

In part the question is simply to refine the technology, further
to deepen the understanding of genetics. But the problem also lies with the
limited focus of molecular biology itself. A quote from Edward Yoxens's
excellent though by now somewhat outdated book, The Gene Business, might be
appropriate:

For molecular biologists, life is what genes do. For them genes
are the key to life, and one need look no further than this for the central
problems of biology. In their hands biology has become a kind of flatland in
which the only activity is the processing and transmission of genetic
information . . . I prefer to think of molecular biology as the expression of a
Meccano view of nature. With a fairly simple conceptual kit and with a limited
number of elements, molecular biologists have been able to represent living
nature with a series of increasingly complex mechanical models. They have spent
years figuring out what pieces there are in nature's Meccano set, and how they
fit together. Some of the more theoretically inclined have examined the very
principles of construction, the rules of order and geometry built into the
Meccano parts. And now, finally, since the early 1970s they have figured out how
to start bolting pieces together, making new models that are not even in the
instruction books. (4)

While discussing biotechnology it is tempting to focus
predominantly on genetic engineering - recombinant DNA technology - as being the
most challenging and dramatic. It is, however, important to stress that
recombinant DNA technology is only one of the instruments in the biotechnology
tool kit. Biotechnology is a very broad term, for which many different
definitions have been given. One widely used description of biotechnology
includes 'any technique that uses living organisms (or parts of organisms) to
make or modify products, to improve plants and animals, or to develop
micro-organisms for specific uses'. (5) This, indeed, includes the whole
spectrum of new and old biotechnologies from simple plant-breeding to high-tech
gene transfer. Generally referred to as the new biotechnologies, are the basic
techniques that have been developed and/or perfected in the past two or three
decades. Apart from recombinant DNA techniques, they include tissue culture,
cell fusion, enzyme and fermentation technology and embryo transfer. None of
them make much sense on their own. It is the integrated use of all these
different technologies that make the new biotechnologies so powerful and
commercially interesting.